Remote Evolution
by sarunotoki
Summary: Ed and Roy are older, but not so much with the wiser. Written for mustanginblue. Oneshot. :RoyxEd:


"You know," Ed said conversationally, brushing an errant bug away from his nose without opening his eyes, "I never figured you for..." he waved his hand vaguely before letting it drop back to the ground beside him, "all this."

Roy turned his head to look at him – Ed knew without looking, he heard the shift of hair-on-grass – and raised both eyebrows just slightly – which Ed just _knew_.

"Well, I never figured you for it, either. You've been in one place for nearly five whole minu-_ow_!"

Ed returned his arm – the left, lucky for Roy – back to its rightful place amidst the tired spread of his limbs.

"I was being serious."

"So was I." Roy retorted with the sound of a warm, callused palm rubbing with exaggerated offence over warm, smooth skin. "Do you always have to hit me? Violence isn't the answer to everything, you know."

"I don't always hit you – and anyway, it wasn't even that hard." Ed smiled up at the sky. "S'not my fault you don't learn. Even the dog gets it faster than you."

Silence.

"The dog." Roy repeated flatly.

"Yeah."

"The _dog_." Again, and it was all Ed could do not to laugh.

"Yeah." He said, casually, when he was sure his voice wouldn't shake. "I only ever have to teach him something once an' he gets it: smart."

"... And to think I fancied myself in love with you. Youthful idealism, I suppose."

Ed made the effort to roll slightly so he could poke Roy in the side with an automail finger and growl a warning of, "Oi," at the man, before returning to his sprawl in the dappled shade. "That's not what you said when I was riding you this morning, and you can't claim youthful idealism at fifty, that's just stupid." Which it was. If Roy wanted to rescind anything, the best grounds he had now was a midlife crisis, and they both knew he just – wouldn't.

"I am forty-nine, and will be for another week, thank you very much." He informed Ed in that slightly haughty tone that meant he was maybe a little serious but really wasn't actually sure himself, "I have no intention of reaching fifty any sooner than I have to."

"'Don't know what the big deal is," Ed snorted like he didn't know Roy's idiosyncrasies any better than he had twenty years ago, "you're only going to be a week older when you're fifty than you are now."

And Roy – huffed out a half-laugh, lay fully back again so he was looking up through his closed eyelids, too.

"You'll never cease to amaze me, I imagine." He mused at the canopy in a voice dropped low and thoughtful, and all Ed's insides squirmed. "Every time I think I've finally attained an understanding of the brilliance that is Edward Elric, you go and exceed yourself."

Ed kept his eyes resolutely shut, as if that would stop the heat he could feel prickling his cheeks, and stuck his elbow blindly out into Roy's ribs.

"Shut up." They didn't – Ed wasn't – _god_, Roy was still a bastard. And had the nerve to _laugh_, the fucker.

"I thought we were being serious, lo- ow." How the first hit had warranted such melodrama while that one only got an obligatory acknowledgment, he didn't know, Ed thought acerbically, because _that_ one had definitely been harder. "You're going to give me more bruises than Ishbal ever did – I imagine you already have, actually."

"Of course I am, if you keep being a _bastard_. You'll notice the _dog_ doesn't talk back to me any more, because he figured it out the _first time_."

"Well, the dog doesn't give you such spectacular orgasms that you scream his name, either – or so one hopes."

"You are," urck – "sick. _Sick_. I hate you – gah. Yuck. Uugh."

"Edward," the word gusted warmth over his ear and he flinched away instinctively, but he didn't try to avoid the fingertips that settled feather-light on his chest. This was Roy, after all, and Ed had never had any complaints when the man touched him. It was only – "Can't a man expound on the virtues of his lover? It's rather common practice, if the vast amount of literature dedicated to the subject is any indication." – that.

"I don't care what's _common practice_." Ed spat, screwing his eyes tightly closed. Roy was looking at him – he _knew_ Roy was looking at him, he could feel the damn man's eyes burning into his skin – but fuck if he was going to give him the satisfaction of looking back, whether the faint whisper of touch down... and up his chest was unravelling his attention or not. "You – I don't – bastard."

A sigh of breath against his ear, and then the whisper of lips on his jaw.

"Even after all these years, Ed." Roy murmured against his skin and – that seemed to be all. He kissed Ed's jaw again, again, worked his way, light and silent, to Ed's neck, collarbone, shoulder. His fingers traced old patterns across Ed's skin, circles and lines and symbols they both denied but couldn't forget. And he remained silent, silent, silent, until Ed's body cautiously surrendered some of the shivering tension, let him draw it away with his touch and his warmth and his – patience.

"Sorry." Ed whispered to the light behind his eyelids, drawing an uneven breath and arching slightly to the brush of fingers over his stomach. Roy didn't say anything, but the touch pressed more firmly for a moment, urging him flat against the ground, and he felt a stir of breath preceding the touch of Roy's lips that could have been a word.

Even after all these years. Ed wanted to hit himself.

But Roy was caressing over his ribs with whole hands now, wide sweeps out from his sternum like he was sluicing water from his skin. Roy's lips were joined by the hint of teeth, the quick swipe of a tongue, an occasional, brief suction, and Ed shuddered but didn't move. Because it was Roy.

"Hm," Against his lips, and Ed echoed the vibration in his throat, opened his mouth at the slow lick of Roy's tongue and wasn't bothered that he didn't know when Roy had stretched out over him, or when Roy had started kissing him, or when his whole body had started pulsing like that.

"Mmh."

Ed made a questioning noise back, maybe, hypnotised by the slow slide of Roy's tongue against his and the heavy warmth of Roy's body on his and the still-strange gentleness of Roy's hands in his hair.

"Ufl."

He really hadn't figured Roy for any of this. Not just the country quiet, the country work, the country isolation. Not just this; lying near-naked on the grass after cleaning themselves in the river because they'd spent the day digging and uprooting and digging and planting fruit trees. And not just this, him, either, because that would always make so little sense that mentioning it really felt like pointing out that circles were round.

"Tfu."

It was – everything. Ever since he'd first kissed Roy – and _god_, sometimes he still wanted to curl up somewhere and just _die_, remembering his stupid, virgin, twenty year old self falling back through the Gate, delirious with fear and pain and relief, and throwing his arms around his once-commander's neck to kiss him full on the lips before promptly collapsing at the man's feet in a dead faint – ever since, he'd had to reform everything he knew of the man at least ten times over, because the man just kept getting _better_.

"Y'tfl."

And Roy just didn't _get_ it. The man was – _Roy_, and Ed didn't care that he had scars or hacked off limbs, or that he was technically and officially dead, or that sometimes he still woke up screaming in the night with nightmares of twisted, inside-out limbs and glowing eyes, because Roy didn't care. Roy touched his automail like they were real limbs and woke him with cool, pale hands on his face in the dark, even when Ed panicked and punched at him, and as long as he was still something that Roy wanted, the rest didn't matter.

"Beaut'fl."

– and Ed reared back, tried to, but his head was already on the ground and Roy's hands were on either side of his face and Roy's mouth was still on his, murmuring into his lips and pressing words into his tongue and drawing the breath to speak from Ed's lungs.

"Roy–"

"Shh..." More kisses, quick and wet and not enough, pulling Ed up after them like a puppet on a string. "'tif'l"

"Nn- Roy–"

But Roy's body was rocking ever-so-slightly against his and his fingers were ever-so-slightly massaging his scalp and his mouth was still ever-so-slightly out of reach...

"Be'utif'l."

"Shu'up, R'y, uh–"

"'eautiful."

"B'st'd, m'n't."

"'t'fl."

"Mmn-ah."

"Beau-f'l, 'd, Ed, 'uti'l."

"F'k'r, sh-up."

"Hah. 'r b'uti'l, 'd."

"Nn-a – R- mm."

"'eautiful."

"Mm."

"E–d. 'd."

"Mm."

"'f'l."

"Mm."

"'f-nn."

"Shu'p'n– uh."

"Mm."

"Mm."

Ed's eyes fluttered open and he blinked lazily up at the man above him. _God_. Roy was – everything Ed had never thought to want, and everything he'd known he'd never have, and it had been fifteen years already, but Ed still didn't have the words for this, still didn't know how to tell Roy that it had been _fifteen years_ and Ed's chest still got tight just looking at him.

"I was going to suggest we go back to the house," Roy smiled down at him with dark, dark, dark eyes and Ed just stared helplessly back, "but I think my back has seized up."

Silence.

And then Ed laughed – and laughed – and laughed.

"You are such a liar." He grinned eventually, though he kneaded his hands down Roy's spine anyway. "If you want me to carry you back, it's gonna be over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes. I'm not as young as I used to be, either."

"And no one is more aware or more thankful for that than I." Roy assured him with a slight smile that made Ed's spine clench.

Ed nudged him in the side with a knee and snorted. "Pervert."

"Only for you, my love." He murmured. "Only for you." And kissed him, while Ed was still drawing breath to retort.


End file.
